


Separation Anxiety

by Josey (cestus), junko



Series: Shattered Souls [5]
Category: Bleach
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-27
Updated: 2012-11-27
Packaged: 2017-11-19 16:34:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/575332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cestus/pseuds/Josey, https://archiveofourown.org/users/junko/pseuds/junko
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s time for Zabimaru to get its own gigai, is Renji really ready for this?  Is Kisuke?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Separation Anxiety

**Author's Note:**

> This is a canon divergence that takes place after the Aizen’s betrayal and before the Bount Arc.

Renji stood in the narrow bathroom staring down an irritated nue. “Listen, I know you don’t like getting your fur wet and sticky, but get in that shower! The note said ‘thorough’ soaking, so that’s what we’ve got to do.”

The baboon’s roar shook the timbers. 

Even though the sound and accompanying foul demon-stink breath had ruffled Renji’s shihakushō and rattled the back of his teeth, he stood his ground. “I’m going to remember this next time you call me cowardly, you big baby. It’s just a bunch of goop. Man―er, demon up!”

The look in the demon’s eye as it turned to stalk into to the shower would have withered a lesser man. With its back to Renji, the snake tail took the opportunity to voice its opinion of this process with a series of angry spitting hisses. 

“Such a goddamn diva! See that’s not so hard, is it?” Renji admonished, once the nue settled on its haunches on the tile. He cautiously opened the bottle of viscous looking liquid and took a tentative sniff. Ugh. It stunk worse that anything that’d come out of Zabimaru’s mouth. 

Renji held it up and offered it for Zabimaru to sniff. The demon wrinkled its snout, and let out a surprisingly delicate sneeze for such a huge beast. The snake tail flicked its tongue out and then waggled its whole body as if to say, “No, no, no.”

“Yeah,” Renji agreed, holding the vial out at arm’s length, the foul odour still lingering in his nostrils. “Okay, look, we don’t have to do this. I’m not sure I entirely trust that mad scientist not to screw around with our soul, anyway. He’s like a kinder, gentler Kurotsuchi Mayuri, so, you know, if you want out, you just got to say so.”

Zabimaru let out a resolved huff and bowed its proud head. The snake settled on to the floor.

Renji frowned. Compliance looked disturbing on the nue. But, if Zabimaru was anything like himself, he knew just how much such a pose cost the demon, so Renji quickly glopped some of the stinky mess in his hands and started working it into Zabimaru’s fur. As he rubbed behind the baboon’s ear, Renji leaned close and murmured, “It’ll all be okay. A little freedom for you will be worth all this.”

Zabimaru caught Renji’s eyes, and, for the first time ever, that inhuman gaze held something Renji couldn’t quite fathom. Pity? Regret? Then, Zabimaru butted his head against Renji’s shoulder lovingly--almost apologetically.

“What’s going on?” Renji asked, as his slick hands covered the soft, smooth scales of the snake’s length. “Is everything okay? I mean, that’s what this is all about, right? You just need a little space. That’s what you said. You know I’m cool with that. But, you never told me why--why you needed it, or why it’s so important right now.”

The demon’s gaze wavered and dropped to the floor. “It just is,” the deep voice grumbled.

Renji nodded, feeling a little nervous about covering the snake’s lidless eyes with Urahara’s gunk, but it didn’t seem to flinch away. Ever since Zabimaru had started complaining about wanting a gigai of its own, Renji figured that this was some kind of... growing pain. Bankai was a big step, and one they hadn’t really completed. Sure, all the raw power was there, but, as Byakuya had oh-so-snottily pointed out, mastery was still lacking. Like a teenager in a gangly new body, they were awkward and clumsy and... uncertain. Renji knew it; Zabimaru knew it. So if Zabimaru needed to stretch out on its own, Renji respected his zanpakutō enough to let it do whatever it needed to make things right. 

So, why did it feel like something more was going on? Renji shrugged to himself, as he continued to work the goo into Zabimaru’s pelt. He’d just have to trust.

After all the liquid was gone, Renji stepped back to admire his handiwork. Zabimaru looked miserable. Its fur was clumped and slick with the wretchedly reeking slime, and it flicked the muscles of his broad back in shuddering waves, like an irritated cat. 

Glancing at the floor of the shower, Renji could see gobs of the sticky substance all over the tile mixed with long strands of albino fur. But none of it had gotten into the waste pipe, so Renji said, “Good enough.” After all, Urahara’s instructions only said to be sure no fur got stuck in the drain. “C’mon, Zabimaru. Let’s get this over with.”

#

“What is this thing I’m signing?” Renji asked, reading the strangely worded slip for the fifth time. It still didn’t make any sense. It seemed to be written in a level of legalese several orders of magnitude more complex than even those gods-forsaken volumes of Gotei 13 regulations to which Byakuya was always referring. Worse, Renji kept getting distracted by the stark naked female body laid out on the slab that Zabimaru was sniffing around curiously. “Did… you… seriously make my zanpakutō into a hot chick?”

Urahara fluttered, “Oh, you think she’s attractive?”

Renji blushed, taking the pen Urahara offered him and mindlessly signed his mark. “Well, uh… yeah. I mean, isn’t she?”

“Very,” Zabimaru agreed in a purring sort of growl.

“Where’s mine?” the snake tail asked.

“Oh! They both talk! Of course, of course! I should have suspected,” Urahara said happily, tucking the slip into the fold of his shirt. For a comical moment, Urahara held onto his striped-hat while trying to meet the slashing gaze of Zabimaru’s tail. He gave up with a dizzy sort of blink. “I’m afraid you’ll have to share,” he told the baboon head, standing up straighter. “Time constraints, you understand, of course.”

Renji could tell that Zabimaru’s snort implied ‘bullshit,’ but it didn’t appear Urahara did. Or, if he understood, he pretended not to.

“Uh, can we just get started?” Renji asked, scratching the back of his neck. “I’m pretty sure that stinky crap is making my Zabimaru uncomfortable and cold. And, honestly, this lab freaks me out. I feel like Frankenstein’s monster is lurking around here somewhere.”

“Frankenstein?” Urahara blinked again, this time in surprise. “You’ve read Shelley?”

“I saw the movie,” Renji said, hoping to hell there was one and turning his gaze away to hide the truth. He didn’t know why, but he suddenly didn’t want Urahara knowing how much time he’d spent in Academy in the library stacks. “Anyway, could be we please just get on with it? Otherwise, I’m going to totally lose bottle and run screaming.”

“Ah. Well, we can’t have that,” Urahara agreed. "So if you’d both like to release shikai?"

#

"Oh. Right okay." Abarai shot his zanpakuto a look. "We can do that, can't we?" The nue huffed a grunt that sounded remarkably like exasperation. "Right yeah, course we can," Abarai continued, "Easy."

And apparently it was. Kisuke observed carefully as Abarai called out the toothed edge of the blade he still wore at his waist, and then as Zabimaru manifested a similar one onto the ground between its front paws. It was fascinating, truly. Kisuke hadn't had the privilege of seeing many zanpakutō in their spirit form, it was something one normally kept to oneself, much like the quest for bankai. But the few he had seen had been rather sad things, not at all like Zabimaru, who truly did appear like a separate individual. Or two. On some levels, this might not be as dangerous as he'd feared.

Offering the shikai-ed pair a beaming smile, he waved a hand at the gigai. "Very good, now if you could pop inside those, we can get started on the more technical aspects. Ah, perhaps you'd like to give Zabimaru a hand?" That last suggestion was to Abarai since Zabimaru was simply sniffing at its gigai and showing no signs of actually entering it. Kisuke would offer to help himself, except really that stuff was vile and he had no intention of getting it all over everything. "And please ensure you stay on the drop-cloth until you're inside."

It was amusing to watch. First time mothers attempting to fit new babies into footies could have taken lessons from the action playing out in front of him. Or possibly mud wrestlers, if mud was normally a clear viscous gel that smelt of dead things and burnt plastic. There was certainly a gratifying amount of bare flesh, fur and tattoos on display.

Kisuke beat a strategic retreat behind the first bank of equipment and restricted himself to offering helpful comments such as, "Try the left arm first," or "I'm not sure it’s supposed to bend that way," and even on one occasion, "What a fascinating place to put your hand. How nice the two of you are so close." 

He could tell when Zabimaru finally slid inside, not because Abarai collapsed in a panting heap, or because all the fur had vanished, but because the gigai rose to its feet with the kind of animal grace that by-passed all cognitive function and spoke directly to Kisuke's hind brain. 

"Oh yes," he breathed with some satisfaction, "You'll do nicely. Very nicely indeed." The smile she turned on him was about as far from winsomely girlish as it was possible to get and Kisuke swallowed heavily, resisting the urge to retreat. 

"Right, then," he chirruped, switching his attention to the conditioning unit. "Please help yourself to clothing if you feel a need." He gestured to the tank top and shorts on the chair. A pity to have all that lovely skin covered up but going by the colour of Abarai's face it might be for the best.

Once that was sorted, he flicked a switch, and two of the conditioner's domes slid fluidly into the air leaving their platforms exposed. "According to the latest research, reiatsu adjustment is a quick and painless procedure which results in perfect pitch every time." The patter was easy, relaxing for his brain. The fan appeared automatically, its flutter another level of distraction as he watched the pair avidly, drinking in the details of their reiatsu, which was exactly as problematic as he'd expected it to be. "When you are ready to proceed, please step inside and make yourself comfortable. Drinks and fine tuning will be served once lift-off is achieved." 

Any shinigami posted to the human world had to have excellent control over their reiatsu. It was a simple necessity to prevent them becoming a magnet for hollows or detrimentally affecting the humans around them, and normally Abarai was no exception. Unless he was in combat, it was tucked as neatly around him as anyone could wish. However, having pulled apart the two halves of his soul, as he'd done to manifest Zabimaru, that reiryoku now leaked between them in the form of a cloud of reiatsu. Something that was not a problem for short periods when manifesting to achieve bankai, but was more problematic if one was, for example, attending high school. For the safety of all concerned, it was essential that the flow of reiryoku between the two halves of the soul was somehow interrupted.

The risk lay in accidentally cutting them off from each other permanently. Severing a shinigami from their zanpakutō was a punishment reserved only for those deemed un-salvageable by Soul Society. It was a step just above execution, and often a forerunner to it since madness and death inevitably followed. Kisuke had no desire to make such a mistake here. Instead he was taking a page from the treatment given to some of his previous experimental subjects. But in order to do that, he had to get them inside the unit, which didn't look to be happening any time soon.

Abarai was giving the domes the evil eye and Zabimaru wasn't much better, though it was harder to tell since her expression was rather inhuman to begin with.

 _I am starting to think permitting that creature independent means was a mistake,_ Benihime breathed against Kisuke's neck. _There is a wildness to her which is quite perplexing._

He shivered. _I'm sure she'll be fine. It's not like demons are real, she just looks like one._

_Hm, and are you so sure that which is not real cannot manifest itself if the desire is strong enough?_

Excellent question. Kisuke pretended not to hear and moved on.

"Perhaps it would help if I explained the process?" he suggested, hoping to get them inside the unit at least. Once there he wasn't letting them out until he'd finished.

"You can try but I can't think of a damned thing that'll get me in there," Abarai retorted and then choked off a curse when Zabimaru pushed past him and hopped up onto one of the platforms.

"Thank you, Zabimaru-san, your co-operation is appreciated," Kisuke smiled, tipping his hat at her. The grimace she shot back at him bore as much resemblance to a smile as a koi did to a piranha. Kisuke ignored the teeth and tried Abarai again.

"Abarai-san, if you go out leaking reiatsu the way you are, you will do as much damage as Kurosaki."

"Yeah, but I'm only leaking because Zabimaru's over there..." Kisuke waited for the penny to drop. It did with reassuring alacrity. Abarai was far from stupid after all, simply a stranger in a strange land, as it were. "Right, yeah," he said. "So what are you going to do about it?"

This was all written out in the informed consent document, however the meaning had ended up being somewhat obfuscated by the legal language so Kisuke felt it was probably fair to explain it again. 

"The conditioning unit will tease apart the stray strands of reiatsu which connect the two of you together until you are entirely separate beings."

Abarai stared at him for about a second before exploding, "No fucking way! Zabimaru, get out of there, we're leaving. And you," he was up in Kisuke's face, reiatsu flaring high even through his gigai. It was quite impressive. "I thought you were different, but you're another freaky bastard like Kurotsuchi. I'm done here. Let's go, Zabimaru!"

Kisuke rode out the storm, holding his tongue as Abarai strode towards the door, his back stiff with pride and bravado. Interestingly Zabimaru had not moved a muscle, something which Abarai only seemed to realise when he reached the door. He stopped and stood, still with his back to them and snarled, "I said, let's go."

"You came this far only to give up?" Being in the gigai must be having an effect. Zabimaru's voice was still deep and growling but it was significantly more human.

Abarai swung round, finger pointing in Kisuke's direction. "You heard what the freak said. He's going to separate us. Is that what you want? For us to be apart?" He looked hurt, scared, young. 

Kisuke calculated that now was the perfect time to try again. "If you would let me explain, Abarai-san. In no way would this condition be permanent."

"Not... permanent?"

"Certainly not. When you choose to rejoin yourselves, your reiryoku would mingle once again as it does now. And in the meantime, to ameliorate the worst of the effects of the separation, you will share a little of your reiryoku with each other. That is, after all, why I asked you both to release shikai before you entered the gigai."

Abarai simply looked confused. Kisuke elucidated, wondering as he did so what exactly they were teaching at Academy these days about zanpakutō if Abarai didn't even understand this much. 

"That is how shikai works. You give some of your reiryoku to Zabimaru and 'she'," Kisuke nodded to Zabimaru in acknowledgement of the sex assignment compromise, "gives some of hers to you. This reiryoku is inside of you. When your reiatsu is separated and sealed, that reiryoku will remain inside of you, a small piece of the other trapped inside your gigai. You will both still be able to release shikai and still, to a limited extent, be able to feel each other. The only things I cannot offer are silent communication and the ability to enter your internal world. However since you may speak and interact in the real world, there is little actual inconvenience." 

Except that the closeness would be gone. The whole idea still made Kisuke feel very uncomfortable. Not to mention the inherent risk of zanpakutō being allowed to roam loose. As a general rule they weren't suited to mundane interactions. Who knew what they'd get up to left to their own devices?

 _I think I could manage perfectly well without you,_ Benihime suggested in tones that dripped with injured pride. _You, on the other hand, would be entirely lost without me, I'm sure._

Probably true, but Kisuke wasn't about to either argue or find out.

"So, Abarai-san," he said. "Are you willing to try?"

#

Was he? No, he wasn’t. Renji wanted to ditch whole crazy plan, run back to his little room at the shōten, hide under the blankets, and snuggle up close to Zabimaru. And, Never. Ever. Let. Go.

Renji glanced over at where Zabimaru sat. ‘She’―he was still getting used to seeing breasts on his zanpakutō―was looking back at him with eyes the wrong colour, though somehow appropriately eerie. He was already feeling the distance between them, because gauging her expression was taking a lot of effort. But there was a resolve and determination in the crinkle between her white-gold eyebrows that he’d seen in a mirror plenty of times before. It wasn’t hard to recognize that firm set of jaw, either.

Worse, he’d seen that look on more than just his own face in the past. A long strand of silvery gold hair had fallen across Zabimaru’s nose, reminding Renji of Rukia.

Goddamn all the women in his life he’d had to step aside for. 

Letting go might make them stronger, but it fucking killed him every time. A huge chunk of his heart tore at the thought of being without Zabimaru, but it would be worse if he didn’t let her go. He couldn’t live with himself if he stood in her way, kept her from anything she wanted. 

Anything. 

Even if what she wanted most in the world was to leave him behind.

And, as much as Renji wanted to deny it, it was clear Zabimaru wanted this. That much was obvious from the start. Renji just hadn’t anticipated the… giant hole that had opened up in his soul or this lingering sense of loss and grief. 

Or how much it scared him

He felt so much smaller without her. Vulnerable. 

Alone.

Like he had been in Inuzuri.

It was that last thought that had him shaking, trying to contain an explosive rush of fear and desperation that threatened to overwhelm him--drag him down into madness, make him into a mindless beast. 

And the damn operation hadn’t even started yet. How was he going to endure--what had Urahara said?--being teased apart, strand by strand, until there was nothing to hold on to, no connection left.

He looked at the jagged-toothed blade that he gripped with whitening knuckles and sweaty palm. No, not nothing; there would be this. After bankai this felt insignificant, but Renji reminded himself that once, not that long ago, this was all the power he’d needed, the only side of Zabimaru he’d ever seen. It had been enough for fifty-odd years. It could be enough for a couple of weeks. Urahara promised this wouldn’t be permanent. 

It was cold comfort, but Renji figured he could endure any amount of pain as long as it was temporary. 

Letting Zabimaru have her freedom wasn’t going to be like Rukia. Zabimaru would still be part of his life. Even if she walked away from him and never came back, he’d be left with something. And not just empty memories he couldn’t touch. He’d have a tiny shard to hold on to, buried deep inside him that no one could steal. 

Even so, he had to hear it one more time, out loud. “This is what you want, Zabi?” Renji asked, trying to keep the pain from his voice and failing miserably. “This will make you happy?”

She tilted her head in a gesture Renji recognized despite her new form. He didn’t need their soul bond to see the love in her eyes, either. “Happy, no,” she said simply, a tear streaking down her cheek. “I could never be happy without you, Abarai Renji. But it is what I need to do. For now. Soon enough we will be together again forever. We will both be stronger, better for this brief separation.”

It was so much more than Rukia had ever given him: tears and a promise to return.

Renji turned to where Urahara was hiding behind his tubes and equipment. “You heard the lady. We’re doing this.”


End file.
